Authors: Mary Jane Staples
‘You do not expect me to part with you, do you?’ she said, her crimson-sheathed body still vibrating. ‘You are discovered and must join us.’
‘That’s very kind of you,’ said Mr Gibson, dabbing his damp temples with his handkerchief, ‘but I’m committed elsewhere.’
‘No, no,’ she laughed, ‘one can only commit oneself to the devil, not to people.’
‘One can, certainly, if one prefers the fires of hell to the tranquillity of heaven.’
‘You believe in heaven and hell?’ she said, ignoring the eyes, the smiles and little whispers of friends.
‘One must believe in something of that kind, or the existence of the soul has no purpose.’ Mr Gibson reached his table, Princess Malininsky still beside him. Natasha had not yet been escorted back by the pale young man. Some people were still on their feet, clustering in talkative groups, women using their fans to cool their heated faces.
‘You are very naive for a man who looks so sophisticated,’ said the princess, seating herself in Natasha’s chair. ‘Heaven is wishful thinking.
Only hell awaits us, hell being the unknown quantity.’
‘You mean if we consort with the devil, the unknown quantity might turn out to be quite comfortable?’ said Mr Gibson.
‘The devil, my friend, is full of surprises.’
Mr Gibson nodded and sat down. ‘Have you met the woman claiming to be the Grand Duchess Anastasia?’ he asked.
‘Why are you descending from the interesting to the pathetic?’
‘I’m a visitor, and I’m curious. The devil may be all of interesting, but why is this woman pathetic?’
‘Did I say she was? I did not.’ Princess Malininsky shook a finger at him. ‘It is certain people who are pathetic, the people who know she is what she says she is, but go away and hide themselves.’
‘What is she, then?’
‘The Grand Duchess Anastasia.’ The princess smiled. ‘True, she’s a sick woman. True, she doesn’t look like a Grand Duchess. But who would after what she went through?’
‘Is that why some of her relatives reject her, because she doesn’t look as they would like her to, or expect her to?’
‘My friend,’ said the princess, ‘there is far more to it than that.’
‘What does far more mean?’
‘Who knows?’ said the princess, echoing Natasha, and that made Mr Gibson look around. The talkative groups of people had returned to their tables. He could not see Natasha. Or the pale-faced young man. He felt alarm. He stood up, but could still not see her.
‘Damn,’ he said.
‘What is worrying you?’
‘My companion – a young lady—’
‘She is valuable, your white virgin?’ said Princess Malininsky, slightly mocking.
‘Yes, very valuable,’ said Mr Gibson forth-rightly. He saw the young man then. He appeared to have just re-entered the restaurant. ‘Excuse me.’ The princess raised lazy eyebrows as Mr Gibson left her and made his way towards the young man, who smiled at his approach.
‘Mein Herr,’ he said in German, ‘your young lady is outside, waiting to see you.’
‘Outside?’ said Mr Gibson.
‘In the office of the manager.’ The young man’s face was smooth and soft, his smile agreeable. ‘The room on the left of the lobby.’
Mr Gibson strode out to the lobby. On the
right was the reception room for cloaks. There was no one in attendance. On the left was a door. Mr Gibson paused for a moment, then knocked on the door and opened it. Immediately, he stood back, for the room was in darkness. Then he pushed the door fully open with his foot. It swung back and something whistled through the air, something that was long and heavy. It would have felled him had he been in its way. He glimpsed the shadowy outline of a man who had struck nothing and was momentarily off balance. Mr Gibson brought his foot up sharply, and the hard toe of his shoe thudded into a stomach. He heard a gasp of pain. The open door shuddered as the man lurched into it. Mr Gibson stepped in, felt for a light switch, found it and depressed the little brass knob. The light came on, revealing a carpeted office, a desk, a telephone and filing cabinet. There was also the man. He was bent double, one hand pressed to his stomach, the other holding a long blackjack. The blackjack moved as his hand tightened around it, and Mr Gibson kicked him again, hard behind the right knee. The man let out a whistling hiss and fell. Mr Gibson took a searching look at him. He was dark, bony and hatless, his black overcoat
unbuttoned. A complete stranger. His face was screwed up in pain, his eyes furious. Mr Gibson stooped and wrenched the blackjack from his hand.
‘Where is the young lady?’ asked Mr Gibson in careful German.
The man grimaced and spat. Mr Gibson, now thoroughly alarmed about Natasha, tapped his shoulder hard with the blackjack and repeated his question. The man, huddled, drew his lips back and showed teeth gritted in fury. An incoherent obscenity came. Mr Gibson rammed the end of the blackjack against the man’s teeth, and again repeated his question.
‘I know – nothing – of any young lady.’ The words were ground out.
Through the open door, Mr Gibson glimpsed the whisk of a white dress and the black of a dinner suit. Natasha appeared. She saw Mr Gibson inside the office, standing over a huddled man. She flew into the office. She stared in shock. A straight-backed, good-looking gentleman followed her in.
Seeing the blackjack in Mr Gibson’s hand, Natasha gasped, ‘What has happened?’
‘I wonder myself what was about to happen,’ said Mr Gibson.
The gentleman, observing both the blackjack and the man on the floor, said politely, ‘Mein Herr?’
‘Good evening,’ said Mr Gibson, and Natasha, heart beating erratically because she felt he had just experienced unpleasantly dangerous moments, wondered what would have happened in Russia if Lenin had been up against a tsar as calm and resourceful as Mr Gibson.
The man on the floor, groaning and nursing his knee, twisted about in apparent agony, then came up in a fast, energetic rush. Thrusting Natasha bruisingly aside, he burst through the open door and was away. The straight-backed gentleman, who had to choose between saving Natasha a tumble or stopping the man, elected to do the gallant thing. She shook his hands off in an impulsively impatient way, as if she felt he had made the wrong move.
‘What has happened?’ she asked again, plainly agitated.
‘Excuse me a moment while I go and ask a few questions,’ said Mr Gibson. He placed the blackjack on the desk and returned to the restaurant, now in soulful response to one more haunting song of lost Russia. Ignoring inquisitive looks, he peered through the
cigarette smoke in search of the pale-faced young man, but there was no sign of him. He moved from table to table, without success. There was, however, an exit door to one side of the musicians. Princess Malininsky appeared out of the haze, which tinted the blackness of her hair with dry, dusty blue. She regarded him in sleepy amusement and drew him aside.
‘If you are still looking for your valuable white virgin, she—’
‘Thank you, I’ve found her. It’s her mazurka partner I’m looking for.’
‘Ah,’ said the princess.
‘You know the young man I mean?’
‘He is a person, not a man,’ she said. ‘He departed.’
‘I’m not surprised,’ said Mr Gibson. ‘However, thank you for being so cordial. Goodnight, madam.’
‘A moment,’ she murmured. Her expression was slightly mocking, slightly intrigued. She was like a woman who had spent her life looking for a man just a little better than most, and was now willing to consider the qualities of a new candidate. Smiling, her red lips moist, she said, ‘If you would like to come into my life,
my telephone number is 2473. Ask for Irena Sergova.’
‘Thank you. I’m Philip Gibson.’
‘I am really a far nicer woman than you think.’
‘Than I think? But I’ve found you quite charming,’ said Mr Gibson, and gave her a smile. He then returned to the manager’s office, where Natasha and the stalwart-looking gentleman were conversing in Russian. Natasha was in an earnest mood, the gentleman wearing a resigned expression. Mr Gibson explained what had happened. Natasha disliked all of it. The gentleman stood apart, unable to follow a conversation in English.
‘The young man who danced with me told you I was out here?’ said Natasha indignantly. ‘But I was not. I saw this gentleman after the dance was over, and introduced myself to him. We sat together at his table for a while.’
‘I failed to notice that,’ said Mr Gibson.
‘But it’s true,’ said Natasha. ‘The gentleman is Russian, and because I knew he had met the lady in the clinic many times, I told him you would like to talk to him. He agreed, but we couldn’t find you. Then Princess Malininsky
said you had gone outside with that young man, so we came to look for you.’
‘Who is Princess Malininsky?’ asked Mr Gibson.
‘The person you were dancing with,’ said Natasha aloofly. She spoke a few words in Russian to the gentleman. He turned to Mr Gibson, lightly clicked his heels and said in German, ‘I am Captain Nicholas von Schwabe.’
‘Gibson – Philip Gibson.’
The two men shook hands, and took stock of each other, while Natasha took stock of both. Captain von Schwabe, pure Russian despite his German-sounding name, presented a handsome and upright military appearance. Mr Gibson did not present so proud a chest, but still seemed a man in quiet control of events.
‘Happy to meet you, Herr Gibson.’ The captain’s German was accomplished.
‘Kind of you, Herr Captain.’ Mr Gibson’s German was passable. He closed the office door. ‘Can you spare a few minutes?’ Captain von Schwabe nodded. Mr Gibson extracted a little notebook from the inside pocket of his jacket, opened it up, leafed through it and consulted it. He smiled. ‘Yes, I have heard of you, Herr Captain.’
‘I am on your file, you mean?’ said Captain von Schwabe, with a smile of his own.
‘It’s only a reference to your association with the woman who claims to be the Grand Duchess Anastasia.’ Mr Gibson delivered that remark in English, and Natasha translated.
‘I see,’ said the captain. He put a question to Natasha in Russian. ‘Does this gentleman stand behind the English throne?’
‘Oh, you may be certain he does,’ said Natasha. ‘His English Excellency is of the highest standing.’ She knew that while this imaginative piece of information might not impress Bolsheviks, it would greatly impress Russian monarchists.
‘What is that you’ve said?’ asked Mr Gibson, suspecting from the gravity of her look and voice that she might be flying a little high.
‘I have assured Captain von Schwabe that Your Excellency’s standing in England is much respected,’ said Natasha.
‘Well, that won’t do any harm,’ said Mr Gibson.
The impressive-looking Captain von Schwabe said, ‘Herr Gibson, this young lady begged me to let you ask some questions. Please ask them,
so that I can then return to my table and my wife.’
Natasha swiftly translated to ensure Mr Gibson fully understood. Mr Gibson responded. He had, he said, a note of Captain von Schwabe’s interest in the claimant, and of the fact that the captain became so sure she really was the Tsar’s youngest daughter that when his wife gave birth to a daughter, they named her Anastasia. ‘I have a further note,’ he went on, ‘that the claimant herself stood in as godmother to the child. Is that correct?’
Natasha translated.
Captain von Schwabe gave a light laugh. ‘Oh, the naming,’ he said, and began to talk in Russian, with Natasha in the valuable role as interpreter. It was true, he said, that he had interested himself in the sick woman, and also true he had supported her in her endeavours to prove she was Anastasia. Natasha translated this with a cautionary look, for it was not wholly correct. Most people in Berlin knew it was not the claimant herself who ran around trying to prove her case. It was her supporters and well-wishers who did this. The claimant, in fact, did not see why it was necessary to prove she was herself.
Captain von Schwabe, his manner pleasant, continued. As a member of the Dowager Empress’s personal guard, he had, he said, known Anastasia well. He had for some time sincerely believed the claimant to be the Grand Duchess, for at times she reacted to comments, questions and situations in a way identifiable with Anastasia. But she was an impossible person on the whole, with a tendency to show the kind of ingratitude one could never associate with anyone of royal upbringing. Because of her fits of bad temper and general behaviour, even some of her most sympathetic supporters found it increasingly difficult to sustain an unqualified belief in her, and eventually decided she could not be Anastasia. There had always been, and probably still were, some credible moments, but there were far too many occasions when only the most gullible people could believe she was in any way royal, let alone a daughter of the late Russian Tsar. No, he had come to the conclusion that he had been sadly mistaken in identifying her as Anastasia. It was his opinion now that she was either suffering hallucinations or was simply an impostor who had done her research well.
Natasha translated impeccably, and Mr
Gibson thought it extraordinary that such an intelligent girl could not get a job. It was even suspicious. Had she been found drowned, people might have said well of course, she had reached such a terrible state of starvation that suicide was inevitable. That thought entered Mr Gibson’s mind and stayed there.
‘Herr Captain,’ he said in his careful German, ‘you have known the woman since 1922. Is that all you have to say about her? That she has a difficult temperament?’
Captain von Schwabe gave another light laugh. ‘Tell the Englishman,’ he said to Natasha, ‘that I could talk for hours about my association with her, but it would all be tediously repetitious.’
Natasha conveyed that to Mr Gibson.
‘I see,’ he said. ‘However, if she has credible moments, and if she has similar physical characteristics to Anastasia, should her unhappy temper govern a decision on her identity? I understand she suffered terrible wounds, that she lay in agony in a cart all the way to Bucharest, and that she is still very sick. One would hardly expect her to be gracious, carefree and perfectly behaved, especially if she is who she says she is, and is being denied.’
Natasha translated, and Captain von Schwabe nodded in acknowledgement of a reasonable point.